Cable ties are widely used in the electrical industry for bundling one or more electrical wires. An example of one such cable tie is that shown in U.S. Pat. No. 3,186,047. Cable ties of this type typically include an elongate strap having a tail at one end and a head attached to the other end of the strap. The head includes a channel therethrough for receipt of the tail of the strap and locking means in the head for securing the tail therein after it has been coiled around a bundle of wires. Various improvements have been made in the cable tie field in an effort to provide further features and benefits to the end user.
One such improvement has been the use of indicia bearing surfaces in conjunction with the cable tie so that each bundle of wires can be marked to distinguish one bundle from another. The art has seen two techniques for providing such indicia bearing surfaces in conjunction with cable ties. The first includes identification plates which include openings therein which permit the strap of the cable tie to be threaded therethrough. The plates which may be marked with identifying indicia are secured around the bundle when the cable tie itself is secured. Identification plates such as these are shown in U.S. Pat. Nos. 3,486,257 and 3,491,470. One drawback of plates such as these is that the tail of the strap must be threaded through the opening in the plate and then again threaded through the head of the cable tie to lock the plate and the cable tie around the bundle.
Another identification technique used in conjunction with cable ties is to form the identification plate integrally with the strap of the cable tie. While this eliminates the necessity to thread a separate identification plate onto the cable tie strap, it does require users to inventory additional cable ties where the identification feature is needed.
Accordingly, it is desirable to provide an identification tag for use in conjunction with a standard existing cable tie which is easy to use and may be securely retained to the cable tie.